The Big Three (Worm/Pact, minor AU) [SFW]

Introductions 1.7.2


Nine runes. That wouldn’t be bad for a morning’s work, and it’s not noon yet. But rather than continuing with your exploration of shamanism, or even working on something else, you decided last night that you want to finish your talk with Blake. If Emma’s betrayal taught you anything, it’s that you need to continually work to ensure that the people on your side stay on your side. You leave them alone for too long, and who knows what would happen?


It also taught you that anybody could be a psychopath in waiting, but that was hardly germane to this situation in particular.


“Well, that was fun,” Blake says easily, a light smile still on his face. “What’d you have in mind for the next part of our day?”


You take a deep breath, eyeing him closely. “I’d like to continue our talk from yesterday,” you say. “Not necessarily the same topics,” you amend hastily, “but there were things that I wanted to talk about yesterday but we…didn’t get to them.”


Blake slowly settles in to your desk chair in the mirror. “Okay,” he says after a few seconds. “Yeah, there is stuff we ought to talk about still.” He fiddles with the cuffs of his sleeves a bit. “Where did you want to start?”


“I think,” you begin, “that the most important thing I wanted to bring up was about I want to do with my powers, now.”


“Oh?” Blake says, tilting his head. “What did you have in mind?”


You take another deep breath. “I want to be a rogue.”


Blake’s eyes narrow. “A rogue? Using your powers for money? That’s…not what I expected you to say.”


“Yeah,” you say, a little awkward but resolute. “I got the impression for our conversations that you were also of a more heroic bent yourself, right?”


Blake shrugs uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t call myself heroic,” he says, eyes roving around the room, his voice falling. “I certainly haven’t always acted that way. I buckled when the chips were down, even.” Shame crosses his face, slow and heavy, with a tinge of remembered fear. “But I always wanted to leave this world a better place than it was before I’d come into it.” He straightens up, sitting upright instead of hunched over the desk, something you didn’t even notice him doing. “And I don’t see how putting our power up for sale will make the world a better place.”


You nod at him, undeterred. “How much do you know about poverty?”


Blake gives you a look, glancing around your room again. “Rather more than you, judging from what I’ve seen so far. I was homeless for a little while.”


You stare at him for a moment, spots of heat beginning to burn in your cheeks. “That wasn’t precisely what I meant,” you say quietly, suppressing your embarrassment. It’s hardly your fault you didn’t know that when he hadn’t shared that about himself. “I meant more about the reasons behind poverty existing at different scales, and the links between poverty and crime.”


Anger flashes across Blake’s face, but you forestall it with a raised hand.


“I’m not trying to say that the poor are all criminals, or anything of the sort,” you continue, your voice still quiet, placing your hand back down on the desk. “My father is a part of the Dockworkers Association, and almost all of his friends are from there. Dockworkers aren’t exactly known to be rich, for all that there is a batch on the West Coast still doing well for itself.” A light scowl starts to cross your face before you banish it with an impatient shake of your head. It’s not important at the moment. “So I’m not holding any prejudices towards low-income people.”


“But it’s a simple fact that people who can no longer support themselves legally will find other ways to keep them and their family alive,” you continue. “I know for a fact that it happens—Dad tells me about desperate dockworkers joining gangs often enough. That’s where the government is supposed to step in,” you say, giving a heavier scowl this time, “but surprise surprise, they’ve been falling down on the job. There are a lot of reasons for that too, like the money spent on dealing with supervillains, and on Endbringer recovery efforts, but still, they’re not doing what they should. It’s not like there isn’t international aid for Endbringer recovery, for instance.


“Anyway,” you drag yourself back to the topic at hand, “I spent a lot of time thinking about it, both before and after I got my powers. I looked some things up, and I think that if I want to help people, going out and punching crime in the face is only going to do so much. We already have capes doing that—hell, we have that independent hero team, New Wave, to help out the Protectorate,” you say, referring to the government capes. “But Brockton Bay is still a hellhole.”


Blake looks a bit uncomfortable, but just waits for you to continue.


“It didn’t always used to be. But ‘globalization’ as a concept has died, just about, and it killed shipping. The fact that one of the Endbringers, Leviathan, only targets places adjacent to the water certainly doesn’t help, since it means so many places hit are ports. The other two hit port cities too, sometimes, so overwater shipping dried up everywhere. Not long afterwards, there was a strike here in the Lord’s Port, and well, things got out of hand. There were fights, complete with gunfire, and a protester ended up sinking a container ship to block off the harbor.


“That was the death knell of our local shipping industry. The richest people, the ones who already had a lot of resources, they spearheaded a shift, turning the town towards the banking and technology industries. And those parts of town are doing pretty well for themselves. But we had a huge population of people who worked here in shipping, with jobs that wouldn’t translate over that easily.


“That, in turn, attracted supervillains. We have very profitable parts of town, which is very enticing for people who chose money over decency, and we have very unprofitable parts of town, with people desperate enough to hench for villains if it means their families don’t starve. And then that attracted the thriving tourism industry that we have right now, at least after the ‘Bad Old Days’ calmed down some. Though the fact that we’re relatively warm year-round helps.”


Blake is looking at you strangely. “How do you know all of this?”


You shuffle a bit, feeling a little embarrassed at how you were going on so. “A lot of this is common knowledge, here in the bay,” you say. “Most of the rest is because of my dad’s job, what’s left I picked up from research.”


“Huh,” Blake says, looking at you appraisingly, a new sense of respect in his eyes. You flush a bit, looking down. “Sorry to interrupt you; go ahead.”


“Yes, well,” you try to find your place for a moment. “Right. There’s more I could cover, but the short version is that the money here in concentrated in the wealthy, even more so than is typical, and as the poor get poorer, things just keep getting worse. Even the heroes aren’t treating everywhere equally: official patrol routes aren’t posted, but plenty of people on PHO have strung together hero sightings to show rough patterns, and they stick to the better parts of the city far more than they go to the areas that seriously need it. I also found a site for tracking gang territories, and it’s pretty clear that they’re still expanding; hell, they’ve even been speeding up the acquisition lately. So what I want to do is hit the criminals where it hurts—not just the money, but in their manpower.”


Blake nods. “How do you plan to do that by being a rogue?” he asks, honestly inquisitive.


A great deal depends on the details of how my shamanism works,” you say with a grimace, “especially with how easy it is to make new runes, and their limits. But there are a lot of possibilities. The simplest, if not necessarily the easiest, would be to start up a business with this that I can use to employ a large number of people. If that doesn’t work, then I could get rich and invest the money in urban renewal projects myself. That, or make very public donations to the city, under conditions that require it being used on those kind of projects.” You’re familiar with conditional donations, remembering how you had fumed at earmarked money going to sports programs rather than improving the academic materials or getting decent school computers, and you already know damn well that an institution won’t do what it should if it doesn’t feel pressure to do so. “I could use my power directly to fix up parts of the city, preferably under contract. Keeping property damage down, for instance, with the use of the Durability rune, or fixing the damaged portions myself. That depends a lot on how long runes will last, and how quickly I can regain my power.”


“The latter idea seems like it would be very difficult to implement—you’re still just one person, and even if you count me, I can’t leverage shamanism anymore. As for the former idea…there comes the actual problem of getting rich, first, or even wealthy enough to hire a lot of people.”


“I know,” you agree, “it’s a flaw in the plan. But that’s why plans can be revised. As for how I can get rich, there are still more options. I will be offering a service that people can’t get elsewhere at any price—that allows for a certain level of price-setting on my part. I can open a shop, and temporarily modify whatever they need into whatever they need, more or less. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Durability or Protection rune was in pretty high demand, just to preserve valuables. Or I could contract with businesses to do the same. I also couldn’t help but notice how many of your runes would be useful in a fight.”


“True,” Blake says. “I was rather concerned with survival while I was learning them, after all.”


You nod at him. “And I’m sure that the government would really appreciate such boosts being applied to their cape-fighting forces, regardless of whether they’re the normal PRT officers or the Protectorate capes themselves. Or the police, actually.” For that matter, you’re pretty sure that firefighters would really appreciate that Extinguish rune Blake mentioned. “That may be the best option, since it strikes directly against the gangs while making more money that I could invest in broader attempts to improve the situation.”


“That…could be really useful,” Blake says, a hint of excitement in his voice. “But I’m a little fuzzy on some of the rules with rogues. Will the gangs consider that just business, or does that put you on the side of the law?”


You grimace. “I don’t know,” you admit. “The rogues I can think of off of the top of my head stay out of it entirely, but that doesn’t mean anything. Especially if the rogues who sell to the hero side deliberately stay under the radar.”


“I suppose there are some possibilities,” Blake muses. “But what about me? What would I be doing while you’re doing all of this?”


You suppress your reaction, barely. Most of this plan had been made before your talks, and you only now realize that your previous plans had completely taken him for granted.


“That’s a good question,” you say, avoiding a long pause by the skin of your teeth. “That depends on a lot of factors that we haven’t had a chance to test, yet. Does the Stranger effect that keeps others from seeing and hearing you work on everyone, and can you turn it off? Would that way of getting your attention,” you touch the mirror briefly, “work with everyone? We already know it doesn’t have to be the n’kisi to work. Do you have any other powers? Because let’s face it, if your abilities worked that simply, it would be the first part of my powers that did.”


Blake doesn’t look pleased, but he doesn’t seem very upset, either. “Something more to experiment with, definitely.”


“If we discover some way for you to affect the world from inside of the mirrors,” you say, tentatively reaching for a better compromise, “it’s possible you could be an independent hero on your own, if you really wanted to.”


Blake locks eyes with you, and he looks…you have no idea, there’s such a mixture of emotions that you can hardly decipher it all. Hope and fear and desire and shame and more.


“That’s an idea,” he says, looking away, letting you catch your breath a bit.


“Not to mention, I’m sure that there are plenty of other ways to be a rogue that I haven’t thought of yet.” Your breath levels off. “But there are other aspects of being a cape that need to be taken care of, too. Like my costume.”


Blake looks at you again, his emotions on a much more even keel. “The little I’ve seen so far honestly looks rather silly. It’s straight out of comic books, isn’t it? Where do they even get it?”


You frown a little. “I don’t think they look silly,” you pause, “for the most part.” You do have to admit that some of the costumes can look a bit goofy. “As for where they get it, I’m honestly not certain,” you sigh. “Wherever it is, it’s not available to newbie capes without an organization, judging from the cape debuts I’ve seen. The first costume will have to be done out of, well, crappy everyday clothes, almost certainly, since I don’t have the money for more. Which doesn’t mean that we can’t pick out a specific kind of style to build onto later.”


“It’s about the kind of image that you want to project, right? The message you convey before you even say a word. I can get that.” Blake nods to himself. “What else?”


You frown. “Something that would matter regardless of what kind of cape I want to be. How much I want people to know.”


Blake tilts his head inquisitively.


“It’s not uncommon for capes to be, shall we say, less than completely forthcoming about their powers,” you explain. “Even heroes, but especially the villains. It gives you an edge, if they don’t know the mechanics, and believe something that’s not true. It’s common enough that there are lists comparing how long capes manage to keep things under wraps.” You flash him a quick smile. “And who knows how many times it’s never revealed at all.”


“Yeah, I understand the value of secrets, surprises, and uncertainty.” Blake nods. “Definitely could be useful.”


“So we need to figure out what we want to tell people about my power. Everything with details left out, pretend that shamanism is my only power, or somewhere in-between. There’s the added complication that I’m a rogue, rather than a hero or villain—I don’t know how that will affect people’s reactions if or when it comes out I was lying about my power.”


“I’ll add it to the list of things we still need to look into,” he says, his voice wry.


You give him a small smile. “Do you have any other questions about any of this that I brought up?”


“No, not right now,” he says.

---

“In that case, I think it’s your turn,” you say. “I’ve been dominating the conversation, and that’s not right. Do you have something you want to talk about?”


“Yeah, a couple of things,” Blake replies after a moment, visibly putting his current thoughts away.


“Go ahead.”


“I suppose we should go to a relatively lighter topic first,” he says, inciting a tiny frisson of nervousness from you at the thought of what the heavier topics could be. “What’s your issue with magic?”


You blink at him a moment, at a loss for words. “What?”


“Magic. Every time it comes up, you just get this look on your face, and your tone becomes…disdainful. You already live in a world where the fantastical is seen every day, what’s so bad about calling things magic?”


“Oh,” you say. You sit in silence for a bit, trying to articulate something that seems so obvious to you. “It’s obviously not magic, because there’s no such thing?” Even as the words leave your mouth, you know you messed it up.


“But why can’t powers be seen as magic? Seriously, I don’t get it,” Blake says. “Magic, on some level, just means things happening that appear to break the laws of physics, or the rules of how the world works. That fits parahuman powers very well, from what I’ve seen.”


“No,” you counter, feeling surer now. “Magic is something inexplicable happening, following no rationale. Powers aren’t magic—even if they break the laws of physics as we know them, it just means we need to update the laws. They still follow rules, they still make sense, they’re just weird compared to what humans are used to. So what? The bottom of the ocean and outer space are also really weird from the typical human experience.”


Blake waits a second before responding. “But there are rules with magic as well. They can be irritatingly fuzzy, yes, but they are there. Like that goblins are hurt by elementally charged metal, or that faeries are less affected by things that have been worked or made. There are rules. It’s not like we’re just waving our hands around and explaining that something happened ‘because magic.’ How is that less valid than what you’ve been saying?”


“Because we know there’s no such thing as magic. Yes, there used to be no such thing as powers, but just because that changed doesn’t mean everything we know is wrong, just some of it. Powers are just science that we didn’t know before, not some mystical force from beyond the stars or something.”


“Hold up,” he replies, raising a hand to stop you. “I think we just really are having some kind of term confusion. It could be that our disagreement is basically nothing more than misusing the terms, or at least having a different understanding of the words we’re using.”


You look at Blake with doubt in your eyes. “How do you mean?”


“Well, you think of ‘magic’ as a catchall term for when people can’t explain things, or something only the deluded or charlatans use, right?”


“Right…”


“But the magic I’ve been telling you about all had rules, didn’t it? The lines got blurry, I’m not denying that at all, but they were there. And your own power seems to be running along similar lines, doesn’t it?”


“Yes…” you say even more reluctantly.


“So can we just say that when I say ‘magic,’ I mean a very specific set of powers that multiple people could tap into? Without all of the derision I hear from you now?”


“I suppose,” you grumble softly. “But don’t go thinking I’ll be fine with labeling myself a magic cape, now.”


“Okay, no problem,” Blake says placatingly, a small smile on his face. You squint suspiciously, but it doesn’t look malicious.


Not that this will affect your opinion of other people who call their powers magic. They didn’t have powers explicitly telling them they were magic, and they still went with the laziest or craziest explanation


Actually, what if some of them did have their powers telling them it was magic?


“That’s one of the issues I wanted to discuss with you,” Blake has been continuing. “What’s one thing you wanted to talk with me about?”


“Well, something that was bothering me was…” You hesitate, but press on, despite your reluctance. “I really, really didn’t like you not telling me that I needed a power source to make the magic work, on Friday,” you say. “I know it wasn’t your intention, but it felt like you were taking advantage of your knowledge, once I found that out. I was just wasting time and looking like an idiot.”


He starts to speak, then cuts himself off. When he starts again, the words come more slowly. “You know that I was just trying to check to see if you needed a power source. To make sure you could check without having your confidence damaged.”


“But it still led to my confidence being damaged,” you try to point out reasonably. “I spent hours working on it and it amounted to nothing.”


“I didn’t know that that would happen.”


“I’m not saying that you did,” you say, struggling to find the words you’re looking for. “But do you see what I’m saying? You had two paths in front of you, without any way of knowing which one was correct: you could have told me I might need a power source, and then have my confidence weaker when I try without, or you could have kept that from me, and had my confidence weaker when trying without a power source didn’t work. Either way could have worked or backfired, either way could have my confidence damaged; but you chose the option that left me in the dark.”


Blake starts looking pensive. “I see what you’re saying,” he says after obvious thought. “I…that does sound kind of familiar to something I’ve heard before.”


“Okay,” you say, trying to placate him now that you got him to see your point of view. “So the next time something like this comes up, would you please choose the option that involves actually telling me?”


Your companion fidgets in place for a time. “I want to promise that I won’t make this kind of mistake again,” he says, “but it’s been pointed out that I can be impulsive, and I do have vague memories about this kind of behavior before. I’m really not interested in seeing what happens when I break an oath like this, so I’ll just say that I promise that I’ll try to keep you informed in the future.”


You rather wish for a more binding promise, but his reasoning makes sense. Most people in your experience are utterly terrible about holding to their promises, anyway.


“Thank you,” you say. You take a moment to make sure that you still have your composure. “So that makes it your turn, then?”


“Yeah.” Blake pauses in thought for a minute. “Alright,” he says. “I did get the feeling that you were just playing around, but on the first run, you jerked the mirror that I was in. Do you remember?”


You blink. “I guess so?”


“Yeah, it was a really minor point, but doing that was really disorienting. The entire world I was in shifted, and that nothingness I described to you was suddenly under my feet. I’m pretty sure I can’t actually step into it and fall forever, but it certainly gives that impression. I’d appreciate you not doing that again.”


You purse your lips. He sounds a little melodramatic, and you’re not sure how far he can stretch that no lies thing—though many of your fantasy stories would say “a lot”—but you’re inclined to take him at face value. Besides, you’ve have far too many complaints brushed aside as being exaggerations to do that to Blake.


Anyway, you have a similar comment in return.


“Okay, that does sound terrifying,” you say, nodding to him. “That’s definitely a fair complaint. I’ll do my best to remember never to do that again. Since you brought that up, I do have something like that myself that I considered mentioning.”


“Go ahead,” Blake says, looking a bit distracted for a moment but still clearly giving you his attention.


“I really don’t appreciate you abusing your Stranger effect, or whatever it is that keeps other people from hearing you, when we have disagreements,” you say, firm on this point. “Especially since we don’t know if it actually applies to everyone, or just on the ones that you tested it on thus far. We haven’t really spent much time figuring out how you work. But it’s not just sloppy, it’s a shitty tactic, just talking louder than the other person. I really don’t like it at all.”


Blake’s mouth slowly opens and closes as you talk. “Have I really been doing it that much?”


You shrug a little, noticing how tense your shoulders are as you do. Huh, maybe some of the firmness was actually anger. “At least twice,” you say aloud, deliberately moderating your tone. “In the library and yesterday morning.”


“I see,” he replies, his words slow as he considers. “I hadn’t really realized that I was doing that, precisely. I’ll try not to do so again. Please remind me if I start to.”


“Will do,” you say, some of the tightness sliding from your shoulders. You both fall silent for a few minutes, letting the tension in the room fade.


Funny, how the small things can cause so many problems.

---

“So what was the big thing you wanted to talk about?” you finally ask, after the tension has mostly subsided.


Blake takes another deep, unnecessary breath. “Yeah. There’s something…I suppose it started pretty soon after I first got here, but I didn’t really notice it until, well, until after the library.”


The tightness slid right back into your shoulders, and it brought friends. The way he’s talking, drawing it out like this, is making you nervous as hell.


“It’s something that was affecting me back on my world, from what I can remember. It was gone when I first arrived, so I thought I was free of it, but it looks like it was just a temporary reprieve.”


“What is it?” you ask quietly, dread coiling its way into your stomach.


Blake fiddles with his cuffs again. “Would you look away from the mirror again? Please?”


You lick suddenly dry lips. “Okay.” You turn away while your mind churns through dozens of possibilities for what could be the matter. Without enough information, it’s all baseless speculation, so you just spend your time hoping it was something you could deal with.


The only noises you hear are rustlings, and they end soon enough. “Okay, you can look.” You turn, a question on your lips, only for it to die stillborn.


Blake’s sweater is off, for the first time since you met him. This would be a minor detail, hardly worth mentioning, if it hadn’t revealed so much of his arms. And that only matters because of his tattoos.


You remember his tattoos. Little birds, sitting amongst tree branches, lots of light colors contrasting against a predominantly red background. The same pattern as the back of the n’kisi, if in more pronounced colors. That first night, you saw that they were on his forearms, with clearly defined edges.


They aren’t like that now. They wrap all the way around his arms, something you vaguely recall seeing before, and extend upwards, high enough that they disappear under his shirt by his shoulder. You can’t even say that they are solely on his arms.


Arms, you only realize just now, that you haven’t seen since…Friday? He kept his sweater sleeves rolled up at first, but he rolled them down at some point and you didn’t even notice. Now, with his sweater off and his shirt sleeves drawn up onto his shoulder, you can see more of his skin than you ever have.


Which is when you notice that the tattoo is moving. The birds are staring out at you, it seems, with eyes that track your movement when you shift from side to side. More disquieting are the waves of blinks that ripple throughout them, all slightly out of time with each other and, you see after a minute, a new wave starting every time Blake blinks his own eyes. The birds don’t move positions, but they do shift in place, wings flapping at times, and the branches they are perched on bounce slightly with their movement.


You stare at Blake, words having fled you entirely.


“The movement isn’t too worrisome, I think,” the vestige says, his quiet words working to fill the silence. “They moved when I first became a practitioner, I remember, and at least one other time later. People get little personal touches of weirdness as practitioners. It’s just a thing that happens.”


You continue to stare, eyes traveling over the unnatural tattoos endlessly.


“The way that they’re spreading is what’s worrisome,” he says, voice still low. “I had a…connection, of some sort, to a place or thing called the Abyss. I still can’t remember a lot of details about what happened to me,” he says, rubbing a hand over his face wearily, “but I still remember the knowledge that I gathered, and I picked up a lot on the Abyss. Trying to keep it brief, the Abyss is a sort of cosmic recycling bin that actively looks to gather more things to break down and change. For a while there, it was giving me power, in exchange for, well…” he raises one arm in demonstration. “In exchange for changing me. I became stronger, faster, just plain better at fighting, but I also became less me.”


Blake locks eyes with you, and the mélange of emotions in there utterly dwarfs the mix you saw earlier.


“I thought that I had escaped it, but it looks like I was wrong.”


You have to cough to whisper past your dry throat. “What are we going to do?”


Blake’s response, just as quiet, hangs in the silent room. “I don’t know.”

---

Basic Info

· Status

o Normal
o Very worried
o Little mirrors on hand: 17​

· Big Three

o Central Pool ( (?-1)/? )

§ FAMILIAR

· Blake

o Normal​

·​

§ demesne

· Locker

o ???​

·​

§ implement

· Pen (Shamanism)

o Normal​

·​

Spoiler: Mastered Runes

·​

Spoiler: Known Runes

· Alarm (hamper: Stationary)
· Alarm (notice: Living Being Detection)
· Durability (inanimate/inorganic)
· Imbuement (Wind: a little lighter, pushes a little harder)
· Orient: Heart (trigger: finger)
· Protection
· Push (trigger: gesture) [27/30 to mastered]
· Quiet
· Unlock​

Spoiler: Runes Blake can figure out and teach you more easily

· Alarm (punish: Y)

· Banishment (incorporeal/projection)
· Defense (inanimate/inorganic, effect: temporary acid-touch)
· Electricity/Lightning
· Exile (prevents spirit tampering, mutes effects)
· Extinguish
· Fire
· Metal (pseudo-transmutation)
· Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
· Reaching out (sensory, detection, no significant locomotion)

o Fire (senses warmth, explodes)
o Air (senses breath, moves faster)
o Earth (tracks footsteps, hits harder)
o Metal (transmits signals, moves slowly)
o Water (senses magic/powers, insta-charges)​

· Secures locks
· Smell-be-gone
· Escher connection​

Spoiler: Theorized Runes

· Copy (document)​

Spoiler: Runes you could learn

· Anything you can See.​

---

Vote for one option per underlined section unless otherwise stated. Feel free to customize your votes with up to 60 words of additional description if the option is listed; if you are using someone else’s plan and wish to add something to it, please bold the new portions.

What do you want to do with the rest of your day? (Pick two.)

[] Figure out more about this awesome Sight power, like what that strange sensation right after you got it was.

- -[] Customization

[] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general (with Blake’s assistance, of course).

- -[] Customization

[] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.

- -[] Customization

[] You spent plenty of time getting information on all of the local capes. Now it’s time to really go through it all in-depth. There are a ton of capes in the Bay, you need to see who’s who.

- -[] Customization

[] You decided to become a rogue. You have some basic information on the ones in your city, but you really ought to find out more about how they work. And aren't there other rogues here in Brockton Bay?

- -[] Customization

[] Back when all of this started, you decided you needed to look into the older fairy tales, but you haven’t yet. Perhaps now is the time. Who knows what insight into your powers it will open?

- -[] Customization

[] You know, Blake was your first real use of your power, but you haven’t explored his capabilities too much. It’s time to fix that. Especially since it might lead to you finding out if he has other powers, or figuring out what the hell is going on with his tattoos.

- -[] Customization

[] Start working to master the runes Blake already taught you.
(Currently selected runes are as follows)

- -[X] Protection
- -[X] Alarm (notice: Living Being Detection)
- -[X] Imbuement: Wind

[] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
(Currently selected runes are as follows)

- -[X] Escher connection
- -[X] Metal (pseudo-transmutation)
- -[X] Exile (prevents spirit tampering, mutes effects)

[] Write-in.

- -[] Customization

---

A/N:
Please remember that while your metaknowledge is helpful, it is not perfect.

If you feel that Taylor’s economics argument is in error, then 1) she’s a teenager, with an internet that’s shittier than ours, and 2) I’d like to hear what you have to say anyway, particularly with citations and sources. I do find that kind of thing interesting

 

Introductions 1.8.1


You don’t know for sure how fast the tattoos are spreading, but all of this happened in a matter of days.


Clearly, you cannot wait to figure out what’s going on with Blake.


You look around the house for your dad, to let him know that you’re going to head out. You search all over, upstairs and downstairs, and you don’t see him. You even peek into his room, to see if he’s taking a nap or something, but no, he isn’t anywhere that you see.


“Maybe he did go to work,” you mutter to Blake.


“Maybe.”


You hadn’t thought to check there before, but now you poke your head into the garage.


“Dad’s car is still here,” you say.


“Maybe he went on a walk?” Blake suggests.


“That would be new, but I guess he could have.” He really has been acting weirdly lately. You wonder what’s going on with him. “Anyway, let’s get going.”


You don’t have time for this. Grabbing a piece of paper, you use your pen to scribble out a quick message about going out and that you will be back by supper, then take off for the bus stop.


You get there in good time, but while you’re sitting alone at the bench, Blake gets antsy.


“Do you want to go on ahead?” you ask. “There’s no guarantee that the same warehouse will still be available.” You’re already anxious, and he’s making it worse. Besides, this gives him a chance to stretch his legs a little. You know Blake likes to move around when he’s stressed.


A pause. “Yeah, okay,” he says, and vanishes from the mirror you’re holding. You almost think you could feel a difference, when he leaves like that. Well, checking into that kind of thing is what we’re doing now anyway. It can wait until after you figure out some things about this potential connection to something called the Abyss, though.


Blake already told you a little more about it. It’s a place with some kind of guiding intelligence. It wants to change things, would work to change more, but it would accept less now to gain more later. Anyone unlucky enough to fall into its grasp ends up warped and changed themselves if they spend long enough there, parts of their very selves worn away or exaggerated.


You shudder at the very thought of your personality modified like that. Your principles ground away, your anger magnified…giving up pieces of your self and having something Other creep in…


You may want to kill the Trio sometimes, but that doesn’t mean the thought of becoming a monster that hunts them in the darkness isn’t horrifying.


The bus arrives, and you get on absently, still thinking on what Blake told you.


The obvious question, after finding all of this out, is how much Blake was changed by the process. You managed to stumble through the question without making his mood worse, somehow. The problem is that he doesn’t know—those memories are fogged just as much as any of the others from that time. He does know that he had changed some before he was summoned, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, but all of the changes seemed to be gone when he woke up here.


Now he fears that the changes may return.


You do too.


“I’m back,” a quiet voice says from the mirror, startling you from your thoughts, triggering a rush of other emotions.


You push down the worries that you feel. It might well appear to be similar to Blake being Mastered, being controlled by another source, but it’s just a thought right now. There’s no reason to jump the gun with this. You don’t know if it will work like that at all, let alone this quickly. How much of the body are the arms, anyway? Would you have to count just the skin, or is it indicative of the flesh underneath being affected?


Realizing that you let yourself get distracted when you trip over an unwary child’s limbs sticking into the aisle, you shake your head. “Hey,” you whisper belatedly, only then thinking to shift in place to cover your mouth with your hand. “Same place as before?”


“No,” he replies just as softly. His words reach your ears while you settle in several seats away from some oblivious teenager with headphones on, even if you don’t recognize him. “It’s occupied at the moment. There’s another abandoned warehouse near it that looks like it will work, though.”


You frown, but flash a thumbs-up at the mirror.


The rest of the trip is silent.


You wish the silence was due to comradery feeling. Or even caution over being overheard. Hell, an awkward silence would be an improvement. Because the trip is not silent for any of those reasons.


The trip is silent because you are planning.


Planning for what to do if this is irreversible but merely cosmetic are easy; no one else has even seen Blake, and you care a whole lot more about who he is than what he looks like. Planning for the right time to ask Blake a lot of uncomfortable questions, like how much this could affect him, or how to bind him if he starts going too far over the edge, is a lot harder. Planning to turn herself in to the PRT if he really, truly goes insane.


Planning.


Lost in your thoughts, the rest of the trip is silent.

---

This warehouse isn’t as suitable as the original one that you used not even a block away, but it’ll do in a pinch. And you’re certainly in a pinch right now.


You stop to take a couple of deep breaths.


“Blake,” you say quietly. There’s nobody around you now, inside this warehouse, and coming out here where you didn’t have to waste time being concerned about people overhearing your was part of the reason you left home, but the volume seems to fit the mood.


“Yeah?” It seems that quiet also fits his mood.


“This is…this has been worrying me. Has it been worrying you too?”


“Yeah.”


“Okay. But it doesn’t have to. Doesn’t have to wear on us like it has been. This…could be something bad, but it also might be something that we can fix really quickly or easily, right? There’s just no way to know until we try.”


He’s silent for a time, long enough that you start to wonder if you had offended him.


“You know what?” Blake’s voice comes from a large piece of glass lying on some detritus beneath a window. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s figure this out.”


You let a smile curl your lips, just a little.

---

Your first several attempts are marked with failure. Nothing you do manages to get the tattoos to shrink back to normal, or even react at all. At least, according to Blake. It’s hard for you to tell, since they haven’t crept down his hands for some reason and are already on his chest beyond what you can see while he has one of his shirts on. There’s a simple solution to that, but…


Sure, it would be more useful to be able to see it directly yourself, but frankly you flush at just the thought of being in the same room as a guy with his shirt off, and he’s clearly not eager to take it off either. One shirt stays on, and the both of you are the happier for it.


In any case, you two have lost the resolve you had in the beginning, and are starting to become…desperate.


“I’m just talking about a little bit,” Blake tries to convince you from his spot back in the n’kisi.


“This sounds insanely dangerous,” you retort, trying to keep a handle on your emotions.


“Maybe a little,” he says, not even trying to hide it, “but at least we would get some kind of results, instead of all of this…nothing.”


“Blake,” you say, squeezing the bridge of your nose. “If you suspect there’s a malicious intelligence slowly possessing parts of your body, why would you deliberately try to trade away more of your body?”


“Just a little more of my body,” Blake insists. “Look, I’m still losing ground, here, even if it’s too slow to see—”


You give a tight-lipped nod to that. It had been a pretty nasty discovery, all things considered.


“—so if it’s going to be lost anyway, why not try and get something out of it?”


“How about because it’s just going to make you lose parts of your body even faster?”


Blake shakes his head. “That doesn’t make any difference if it’s still gone before I can figure out anything. At least this way we’ll know if it’s actually the Abyss, if it’s still listening like it was before.”


You open your mouth to continue, but Blake cuts you off.


“Taylor. It’s my body. I’ve already lost most of it to the Abyss, and I still don’t know how it came back. I know I can’t count on being able to reverse it again, but I have to know what’s going on. If the Abyss is here, listening, then I might be able to trade with it. I did before. Halting the consumption by changing something bigger.”


At your wary look, he elaborates. “I can think of a lot of things in this town that could use some change, even if it’s a change that ruins,” he says. “Like, for instance, the gangs. It wouldn’t be pleasant for them, but people who use their power to kill and torment innocents for their own gain are practically monsters already. I’m pretty sure I could bring about some change by peeking through reflective surfaces and having you pass along the information to interested parties.


“And if I do this,” Blake says, returning to his previous point, “then it’s only a small part of my body for knowledge that I can use to save the rest of it. I want to take the risk.”


Well. What can you say to that? You’ve already let him know what your opinion is, and the dangers you anticipated, but it is his own body he’s talking about. If he wants to risk it, he can. Even if you think it’s stupid.


You cross your arms and look at him in response. He nods back and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again.


“I’m going to take off my last shirt so I can check it works more quickly. I don’t want to offer parts of my hands, since they’re still clear.” Before he even finishes speaking, you turn to face another direction. “Thanks.”


You hear a rustling and then silence for a few moments.


“Nothing so far,” Blake says, and you relax tense muscles slightly. “I’m going to try again, a couple of different ways.”


“Okay,” you say, making up your mind. “I’m just going to step over there.” You gesture somewhere off in front of you, but don’t wait to hear a response. You walk a little ways away, but stop before you could get near the 30-foot limit. You settle down to think of something new, something you hadn’t already come up with, shutting out the sounds drifting over from the n’kisi. You’re sure that there must be a solution. There must be.


You don’t want Blake to die.


Just as you think you may have a good idea, you hear Blake calling your name. “Alright,” he says once you walk back over to him, “so I’ve addressed the Abyss in every way I can think of, and it doesn’t seem to have responded. Well, the progress seemed like it might have been slower there at the end, but it’s going so slowly I’m honestly not certain.”


You nod, relieved and yet peeved at the same time. At least he put his shirt back on.“And from this risk, you learned what, precisely?”


“That even though this seems to be similar to what I can remember of this happening to me before, it’s apparently not actually orchestrated by the Abyss.” You stare at him, and he shifts in place a little. “Or possibly that the Abyss is still here and connected, but is declining to respond to my offers or bargains.”


So almost nothing. You pinch the bridge of your nose again, more gently now that he’s out of danger. You won’t actually speak the thought, not when you’ve been getting along better. And not when he seems to be getting the message anyway.


“I have an idea,” you say, your tone careful. “Maybe we’re addressing this in the wrong way.”


“How do you mean?” Blake asks, his own tone curious.


“What if the tattoos spreading aren’t because of the Abyss gaining a foothold? What if it’s part of my power summoning you, and totally normal?”


“We considered that, remember? When we checked to see if I could will the tattoos back to normal?”


“Yes, but when that didn’t work, we just gave up on the idea entirely. What if the basic idea is sound, but it was our execution that was wrong?”


“What’d you have in mind?”


You hold up one hand triumphantly.


“Your pen? You think runes can solve the problem, or shamanism?”


“No, no—I’m pretty sure I told you, but when I created my implement, I was able to put more power into it even after it was created.”


Blake looks conflicted for a moment. “I remember.”


“So I was thinking—what if we could ward off this…spread with the same method? For all we know, this is signifying some kind of vestige degradation.” Which would be rather terrifying, considering how far it spread in such a small amount of time. “What if that’s how we put it off? By pushing more power from the FAMILIAR bundle into your shape, the representation of you in my head?”


Blake takes a moment to ponder it. “Pushing power into people or Others can have nasty effects,” he says. “Possession is a real worry, for instance, when what’s left inside you is not enough you and too much something else.” He pauses again. “I haven’t noticed anything yet, though, and I have been subsiding off of your power, at least in part, so possession seems unlikely and damaging my vestige nature probably isn’t something to worry about, at least.”


“It would make a lot of sense,” you say, “for my power to come with a way to summon you and feed you energy that wouldn’t harm you. It worked fine for my pen. And I’ve never heard of a power hurting itself before.”


“You also haven’t heard of a power like this one before.”


“That’s true,” you counter, “but a lot of powers are different in lots of ways, and I’ve still never heard that.”


Blake considers it a few moments longer. “I’m not sure about some of your assumptions, but let’s try it,” he says, his tone easy but with something else underlying it. “If it doesn’t work, the worst it’s likely to do is make me stronger. All things considered, I wouldn’t mind that.”


You nod firmly at him, then close your eyes to pull up your bundles.


They’re still there, floating in your mind, like they have been ever since you first got powers. They used to be all you would think about when you thought about your powers, all you could think about at all towards the end, but you haven’t put too much thought into them lately. There are so many more new and interesting aspects to your power now.


But enough of that. You mentally reach for the FAMILIAR bundle and eye the shape that has to be Blake. You take a little bit of the energy from the bundle and slip it down the connection to your familiar, keeping your hold on it so you can take it back if needed. You frown a little. That felt different than it did with the pen. Normally it would be something that you wouldn’t notice, but you were paying very close attention this time.


“First things first,” you murmur to yourself. You let go of the bit of energy and watch it slide down the connection, merging seamlessly with Blake’s shape when they touch. You open your eyes to see Blake straighten up a little. “Feel that?” you ask rhetorically.


“Yeah,” he responds anyway. “It felt nice.” He stretches his arms out.


“But did it help any?”


Blake pulls further on the sleeve of his shirt to check underneath. “No, it doesn’t looks like it.”


“That’s okay,” you say, still determined. “I have more to try.” You close your eyes again to focus.


It takes you a while, and multiple tries—though only a little energy, since you manage to recover most of the power that you use in your experiments before it gets absorbed into Blake’s shape—but finally you figure out the source of the strange feeling you had when feeding energy to him.


It’s difficult to describe. A second channel to move the power down is sort of what it feels like, but you can very definitively tell that there’s just one connection between FAMILIAR and Blake’s shape. It almost feels like moving it down the same channel in a different way, but not quite that either.


In the end, you consider it an alternate function to the same channel, and leave it at that. Holding your breath, you push a jot of energy down the channel in the way you just figured out, until it touched Blake’s shape.


“Whoa!” His voice cuts right through your thoughts. Your eyes fly open, only to realize that the bundles are still floating in front of your vision even with your eyes open. For all that they don’t actively interfere with what you’re seeing, you still blink them away in annoyance. “What the—what was that?” Blake says, twitching a little in place.


“Did it hurt?” you ask, concerned. All of this is still so new…


“No,” he reassures you. “It was just a very weird feeling to have out of nowhere.”


“Sorry about that,” you say, “but did it work?”


Blake pulls his shirt aside to check once more. “I…yeah, I’m pretty sure it did,” he says after an interminable few seconds. “I’m not even sure if it’s still growing, actually.”


“Let’s make sure,” you say, your tone determined. You grab more energy than last time, just as much as you intend—is this getting easier?—and use it with the connection’s alternate function. The moment the power comes in contact with Blake, you simultaneously open your eyes and banish the bundles from your sight. You want to see this.


It’s certainly a sight to see. The tattoos that look like branches are actually growing backwards. The birds sitting on the branches are hopping to keep up with the branches every time you blink, though some just seem to disappear instead. The red background just seems to roll back with the movement of branch and bird, leaving unblemished skin behind.


Yes!


Even with all of that, however, while the tattoo visibly shrank, it still isn’t by a lot.


“This could take a bit,” Blake comments, staring at his arms. Despite his words, his expression is clearly relieved.


“Or at least a bunch of energy,” you agree with a grimace. Still, now that you have a way to directly reverse the process, you aren’t going to waste much time complaining. You continue to apply the power from FAMILIAR to Blake, shrinking the tattoos in a minimum of time and power lost.


You want to flop onto the floor when you confirm that the tattoos are back to their original size, but settle for sitting back down on the same spot that you sat when you thought up the idea.


“Well,” you say as you look up at the somewhat dilapidated ceiling, “that’s a load off of my mind.”


“Me too,” he replies. “Even if there are still some questions.”


“Yeah,” you sigh, “like what exactly was happening there, if the answer is anything more than ‘it’s a part of my power.’ Or why it spread so quickly, and if it’s going to keep growing that quickly.”


“Which leads directly into how and where you get your energy from,” Blake says, the relief fading from his voice. “Taylor, you didn’t say exactly how much you were using, but it didn’t exactly seem trivial. Am I wrong?”


He’s not wrong. You don’t say anything.


“We really need to figure out how to get you more power. It’s not like it was ever not important, but it seems like it just got a lot more so.”


“I agree,” you say. “I was already considering looking into my bundles with more depth, after this.”


“Yeah?”


“Yeah. Even if it wasn’t planned…well, we already talked about needing to adjust plans to changing circumstances, didn’t we?”


“We did.”


You shrug, looking up at the ceiling. “I’d say that circumstances have changed.”


“Alright.” Blake pauses for a few moments. “I’ll keep thinking on it, but now that this crisis was resolved, did you want to continue looking into what I can do?”


“Of course.” You heave yourself up onto your feet. “Especially if this is something that‘s just a part of you from the beginning. If we had tried this sooner, maybe we would have noticed it then.”


“Thoughts, then, on what to test next?”


You think for a moment while pulling out your cape notebook. “Maybe go test the things we already know, just to be sure? We can both think of new things while you do that.”


“What, you mean you don’t already have a list of things to explore in this impromptu session?” Blake says, relief bleeding into his tone again. “It’s not like you had anything distracting you on the way here or anything.”


“Shoo, you,” you reply, a little smile crossing your face. He shoos, and you start to go through your notebook to see if there’s anything you can explore more about now.

---

“Someone saw me,” Blake says by way of letting you know that he’s back.


All of the thoughts previously being considered flee your mind. “What?” you blurt. “Who, where?”


“Someone saw me,” he repeats. “I don’t know who she is. Lower middle-aged, or someone closer to my age but who has had a pretty rough time of life. Pale skin, blonde hair. A lot of makeup, not a lot of clothing, all of which was stained with something. I saw her inside an abandoned warehouse, a couple blocks from here, a little north but mostly west.”


You can’t help but blink at his succinct description.


“I’m pretty observant,” he says, shrugging it off.


“This is huge,” you say, brushing it aside for the far more monumental news. “I…I wondered if others could see you, but it hasn’t worked before now. Why this time? Why her?” You cut off Blake’s first words. “Could you see her connections?”


“No,” he replies after waiting to see if you were done. “Or rather, I don’t know. She was too far away when I spotted her, way more than six feet away. And there weren’t a lot of windows in the warehouse, so I couldn’t get close to where she was. Mostly I was focused on getting away once I was sure she was reacting to me, instead of just at random.”


“Why would you think she was reacting randomly?”


Blake shrugs. “The way she was acting, she seemed like she was high. A lot of the people there did, honestly.”


You shudder. The idea of getting caught up in drug use in any way had always been terrifying to you, frankly.


He shrugs again. “Most of the people there looked homeless. Drug use is pretty common among the homeless. Not for the reasons that you may be thinking. Just…when all you have is time, drugs become something done to pass the time. And some do it for what little bits of pleasure they can grasp.”


You look at him, remembering what he said about being homeless for a time, assessing.


“Not me.” He shook his head. “I was trying to crawl my way out of that situation. Taking drugs would have been backsliding, in a way. Not to actions that I had done before, but more…the attitude, the environment. I spent too long in toxic conditions to fall back on one once I got away.”


“So what did you do to pass the time?” you say, guilt coloring your tone. You shouldn’t have thought that of him, just because of a stray comment.



He smiles gently, raising his arms towards you, forearms up. “Birdwatching.”


You shake your head. “Naturally,” you say, your eyes on his tattoos. You might have smiled again, were it not for the guilt still staining your thoughts. You leap at the thought of a distraction from this line of questioning. “Do you think you could get close enough to the woman to see if you can see her connections?” you ask, your tone becoming more serious.


“They looked like they were in the middle of packing up their stuff to leave even before I got there, and they only sped up when the woman started shouting, but I’ll check.”


After he vanishes again, you try to gather your thoughts. You hardly have the time to do so before he returns.


“They’re all gone,” he says from the n’kisi. “I did a quick check of the nearby area, but I didn’t see them. Either they’re not around areas with decent reflections or they left a lot more quickly than I thought.”


Not good news. Still, not bad news, really. At least you found out that other people could get past Blake’s stranger effect before you went to school. You don’t know what the criteria is, but being around hundreds of other people, in close quarters? At least one of them was bound to fulfill it, if Blake went in talking at normal volume like he has been.


“You’re right,” Blake says after you share your thoughts, “that would have been a nasty surprise. Anyway,” he says, clapping his hands, “did you think of something that you wanted to understand better?”


“Nothing we’ve already explored,” you say thoughtfully. “You already did a quick check, and beyond that woman seeing you, it was all the same, right?”


“Yeah,” Blake nods.


“So we can leave further explorations off for another day,” you say. “For now, let’s see what you can do that we don’t already know.”


“An interesting idea, sure,” Blake concedes. “But do you have any thoughts on how to actually discover any of that?”


“A couple,” you say. “For instance, I was wondering a little more about your tattoos.”


“Oh?”


“Yeah. I mean, all of the branches, and birds and stuff—it could just be cosmetic, but it might not be, too. Do you remember anything either way?”


“I think that I do,” he says, a thoughtful look on his face. “I seem to remember pulling out bird spirits out and using them to…do…something. I’m not sure what.”


“How’d you do that?” you ask.


“I cut a hole in my side and stuck my hand inside,” he says matter-of-factly.


“…oh,” you say, a little queasy.


“Yeah, for some reason that seems like more of a big deal now.” Blake looks a bit uncomfortable. He rubs a hand over a tattoo with one hand. “I wonder—” He cuts himself off with an ooph, hunching over slightly.


“Blake? Is something wrong?” Blake straightens back up, turning his hand over, and—


You stare.


Your first thought is that the tattoos are spreading on his hands now, because one of the birds from his forearm is flapping its wings on his palm. But then his hand shifts, turning palm-up, and you can clearly see that the bird is outside his body.


Your breath slips between your lips for a moment, and you take an instinctive half-step closer to the n’kisi.


It looks like a very well-done rendition of a bird, for all that a few feathers are falling from, but that doesn’t exactly make it any less surreal. Neither does the faint glow surrounding it, for that matter.


Well, Blake did say that he could do this. You shouldn’t be so surprised when he then turns around and does it.


“What can it do?” you ask, curiosity saturating your tone.


“Ah,” Blake says, looking at the little spirit in his hand. “Looking at it is bringing back memories. It should be able to do just about anything a bird this size could do, if it was stronger and tougher than it looked, could understand my speech, and was quickly dying.”


“Dying?” you ask.


“Yeah. You noticed the feathers?”


You nod. The bird is actually looking a bit bedraggled by this point.


“It’s symbolic. That’s actually power that it’s shedding. But while it lasts…fly to the floor.”


The bird spirit immediately flaps its way to the floor near Blake’s feet.


“Come back.”


The bird does so. Blake turns his hand over, pressing his palm to his tattoo, and when he lifts his hand, the bird is gone. He straightens up a little from a minor slump you hadn’t noticed.


“That still feels like I just got the wind knocked out of me when I make those. I got a large amount of it back, though, when I took it back in.” He’s rubbing one part of his tattoo lightly. When you peer more closely, you see it’s one of the birds. The same one? “They don’t live for very long, but they’re pretty handy while they last.”


“Handy for what? There’s not a lot to do in the mirror world that you couldn’t do yourself, right?”


“In the…” Blake trails off. “Oh, I should see that holds true too.” He places his hand on the other tattoo and pulls out another bird. Quickly, he holds it up near his face. “Go to Taylor.”


It flies to the mirror—and through it, startling a small yelp from you as it keeps flying at you. Even as you reflexively raise your arms, the bird perches on one, looking at you with no expression on its rather sketchy face.


“Yup,” Blake says cheerfully. “Looks like the mirror still isn’t a barrier to the spirits.”


“That,” you say without taking your eyes off of the glowing bird on your arm, “was not funny.”


“That depends on your point of view, I suspect.”


You ignore him to address the spirit perched on your arm. “Go to Blake.”


Nothing.


“Fly back? Return? Uh…”


“Come.” At Blake’s command, the bird turns and flies back through the mirror. He presses it to his tattoo as soon as it lands, and once again straightens up afterwards. “So they only listen to me,” he says.


“So it seems,” you say unhappily. Not that it’s a surprise, really. As weird as it is that your projection—is that’s the right term? Probably, as far as the PRT would be concerned —has a projection, if your own projection wouldn’t listen to you, why would its projection?


You shake your head. That’s the wrong way to think about this, and you know it. You’ve made a lot of positive steps between Blake and yourself lately, and you’re not going to start backsliding like that the moment something strikes you the wrong way.


“So it could move the reflective surfaces around for you? That could be useful for surveillance.”


“Yeah, it could,” he agrees, “whether it’s for you with your rogue business or if I manage to get an independent hero gig going.”


“Right,” you nod a little hesitantly. Well, it had been your idea. You’re pretty damn sure you would have to hide that Blake is a projection, in that case—you haven’t checked, but your understanding is that projections are considered part of their creator, not an independent being, and certainly not a person—but you could do that. You think. Anyway, it’s moot unless… “Were you thinking that the birds would be enough to start?”


“No,” Blake sighs, “it’s not nearly enough. Especially not with how tiring they are to make. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a potential tool for use now, and maybe more later.”


“Okay,” you say, nodding back more firmly. So you don’t have to make your choice right this second. That’s good, though you should decide soon. It would be wrong to lead him on, only to yank the rug from under his feet as soon as he discovers something that would let him pull it off. But there was time for that later. “Anything else about the birds that you can recall?”


“Yeah, some more,” he says, clearly having already been thinking about this. “They weren’t very good at understanding what I meant, rather than what I said. That led to problems on occasion. Plus, they could be…infused into things.”


Your eyebrows slowly rise at the reluctance of that last part.


Blake grimaces. “They could be infused into objects. That was the easy part. That was just investing things with power, like I mentioned using blood before. Pretty similar mechanic, really, since the spirits are keeping me alive.”


“And what did that do?”


“As far as I can remember, it was just power for sympathetic magic. That just means using like to affect like. Given three points of similarity between two objects, then add some power, and you can influence one object and have it affect the other.”


You consider this. “So like voodoo dolls?”


“Yeah, basically. That’s one example, if more advanced than anything I tried before. Except I used it to forge connections between real objections and their reflections, then moved the reflections.”


You whistle. “I bet it would let you pull off a solid poltergeist impression.”


Blake chuckles. “Probably.”


“So what’s the not-so-easy part, if infusing in things is the easy part?”


He grimaces again. “Infusing into people.”


You suddenly don’t like where this is going at all.


“It didn’t let me start puppeting them or anything,” he hastily assures you. “It was more of a donation. It gave them energy, power, even seemed to do some healing in one case. I think.” He stops in thought for a few seconds. “Or at least let someone keep going after being injured, so maybe something like healing…”


“I see. That sounds great,” you say, leery. “What was the catch?”


“There was some kind of connection to me, though I couldn’t use it to control people. It gave me insight into who they were, what they meant when spoke or even the expressions they made, things like that. Again, to put it into the local terms, more like a person-specific Thinker power. It also gave them insight into me, but rather than being a moment-to-moment thing, it was more…an insight into how I felt as an Other. The emotional overtones.”


“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say slowly. “Unless you felt like that was…opening you up, emotionally?” On second thought, you cringe at the idea of someone getting a peek at your general emotional state.


“I didn’t mind at the time, but I think it was more due to whoever it was that I gave it to. Those feelings…probably an old friend. I’m not sure how I’d feel doing it to strangers.


“There’s more, though. It also seemed to connect them with the Abyss. At the very least, they were affected by some of the Abyss’ power. We didn’t…my memories seem to fade entirely before enough time had passed to say whether or not it would wear off.”


Given everything Blake has been telling you about the Abyss… “Okay, that could be bad,” you whisper.


“I don’t know that it will,” Blake stresses, “but yeah, it definitely could be bad.”


“Okay,” you say, “so we just won’t try that today. Sound good?”


“Yeah, definitely.”


“Good. Now we just need to see what else they can do.”

---

As it turns out, they can do a lot less than Blake remembers. They move around freely, in and out of the mirror world, and can affect either world with surprising ease given their size and…visually incomplete natures.


However, they are quite literal when responding to Blake’s commands, and don’t always interpret what he orders correctly. They are also apparently completely incapable of being invested into objects, much to Blake’s bafflement. You hadn’t tried to see if they still worked on people, for a number of reasons, but their utility is a lot less than you thought after he explained what he did with them before. Still, they are helpful, and it’s possible that Blake will figure out how to get them to work in the future.


Blake made another discovery while trying to figure out what was happening—the birds aren’t the only construct he can make. He can also make branches grow from his skin, the same way he lets the birds come out. They’re more tiring to make than the birds, but he gets more of the power back when he draws them back inside his tattoos. The biggest catch is that they remain fixed to his body, but the two of you are sure that you can figure out a way to use them nevertheless.


Still, it’s time to move on with the testing. And for the next stage, you have a question you’ve wanted to ask for a little while.


“Say, Blake?”


“Yes, Taylor?”


“What’s your second form?”


Blake blinks, once, twice. “My what?”


“Your second form,” you repeat. “You told me back on the first night that familiars have two forms, and practically your first words to me were that you were my familiar. So shouldn’t you have a second form as well?”


“…huh,” Blake says, settling back within the n’kisi. “Somehow, I hadn’t put those two together yet. I didn’t have a second form before.”


“You weren’t a familiar before either, so far as you can remember,” you point out.


“True, true.” Blake’s voice is softer, more distracted. “I’ll try to see if I can figure out how to do this.”


“What’s the point of having two forms built into familiar rituals?” you ask after a brief pause. You may be disrupting his thoughts, but he’ll tell you if that’s true. In the meantime, you’re curious. “I get that you wouldn’t want a goblin openly standing next to you all of the time, but didn’t you say that it was really hard for the uninitiated to notice magic or magical creatures?”


“Yeah, but there were exceptions,” he replies, clearly still thinking. “Besides, a lot of times, they—oh wait.”


“Did you figure it out?”


“I think—”


A blur explodes out of the mirror in front of your, shards of glass flying everywhere. You yelp in shock, flinching backwards and throwing up your arms, only to land on your rear end. You are used to falling unexpectedly, and the fall itself doesn’t hurt you, but that doesn’t stop you from hitting your head on some of the crap behind you.


“—so,” Blake’s voice finishes belatedly.


Shaking off the pain, you slowly drop your arms, and see a sight that you hadn’t expected to ever see.


Blake is out of the mirror.


He’s just…standing there, looking just as he has been, but in the real world.


It’s surreal.


“Blake?” Your voice is soft, hesitant.


He looks around, slowly opening and closing his hands. There’s no reply.


“Blake?” you say again, more firmly.


“Yes? Oh, sorry, I was just…” He trails off, looking around him again.


“I guess it’s a big change for you, huh?” you say, trying to get a handle on the situation. It’s not like you wanted to keep him in the mirror or anything, but you can’t say you expected it, either.


“Not so much, actually,” Blake corrects. “The vast majority of my memories are of being out of the mirror. I was just expecting…more. More difference. It feels pretty much the same, after all.”


“Oh.” What do you even say to that? Your eyes trace over the glass on the floor, covering the area that you had cleaned when you got here. Glass that came…when Blake changed…


Your eyes grow wide.


When he exploded from within the n’kisi.


“Blake,” you croak out, and something about your voice catches his attention.


“What is it?” he asks, turning to look for danger. He doesn’t have to turn very far, however, to see the n’kisi. Or what’s left of it, at least. “Fuck.” He goes still.


The frame still looks fine—not a scratch on it, that you can see—but the glass is almost entirely gone, with just a few jagged edges hanging on at the border. The glass that made up the mirror is sprayed all over the floor, and even yourself. The glass you note on your clothes would concern you more at any moment other than this.


“The…the…” The first thing you ever made with your power. The—crap, the thing keeping Blake tethered here! What was he going to—?


There’s a tugging at your bundles, subtle enough that had you missed it in your shock, that finally grows large enough to grab your attention, for you to realize what it could mean. You shut your eyes and pull up the bundles. FAMILIAR is there, and the shape that you know has to be Blake is still there. Your fears of it fading, the line between them unravelling, appear to be unfounded. You might have sighed in relief, but the tugging persists, and you finally give in.


Power flows from FAMILIAR to Blake’s shape, in yet another way. It’s not a lot of power, but it’s not nothing, either. The power finishes flowing into the shape, and abruptly the n’kisi is gone.


“What?” Blake blurts out. He spins towards you. “Where did it—?”


The n’kisi lays on your lap, cradled protectively in your arms.


There’s a short silence.


“That’s convenient,” he says at last.


“It is,” you say, your breath finally slowing. You reach to brush the glass shards off of yourself to find that all of them are gone.


“So did it just...?”


“It seems like it just takes some power from the FAMILIAR bundle to fix the n’kisi and teleport it to me,” you say. “And clean up after itself,” you add after a moment.


You catch your breath for a bit.


“Blake?” you eventually ask, your voice hesitant.


“Yeah?”


“Are you...human, right now?”


“I...no, I don’t think so,” he says. “I don’t feel quite right, for that.”


“Oh,” you say. A pause. “Are you still a vestige?”


“Maybe?” he hedges. “I feel pretty similar to how I did in the mirrors, and I’ve met a couple vestiges that weren’t restricted to a specific medium.” His expression doesn’t look too confident however.


“What do you think you are, though?” you ask him quietly.


He hesitates. “Probably a bogeyman,” he says, looking at himself. “I don’t look much like it, at the moment, but...some of the pieces, they fit better if that’s the case.”


You take another deep breath. ‘Bogeyman’ certainly does not sound good. “And what kind of Other, exactly, is a bogeyman?”

“They’re...not necessarily the nicest Other around, but they’re certainly better than many others,” Blake explains. “The Faerie and goblins are arguably worse, for inst--wait,” he breathes. “I hear something.”


You open your mouth--to say what, you're not sure--but are interrupted by a sudden rattling screech. You start in place on the floor while Blake crouches a bit to hide behind the piles of junk everywhere.


You place the noise as that of the rusted iron door you used to get into the warehouse, only to hear a sound that makes you freeze.


"Come on, you lazy assholes!" a lightly accented voice yells from the doorway. "Checking out these warehouses takes too much longer and I'm going to have to give somebody's name to Oni Lee, and you can bet your ass it won't be mine!"


Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oni Lee is the total psychopath that's second in command of the ABB, one of the biggest gangs in the city. You're in the Docks, but you're supposed to be out of ABB territory.


Apparently nobody told them that, as you can hear a number of voices reach the building's threshold and come in. You and Blake are out of sight as you are, but that won't last long.


You glance at your familiar, who became perfectly still, wearing his jeans and smallest shirt. You know that he claimed to be better at fighting as a bogeyman, and decent at scrapping, whatever the hell the difference between the two are, but you don't know how good that actually is, and he doesn't have a costume right now. You have your own powers, but they're supposed to be slow--not that you've tried using them for anything beyond learning some runes--and you don't have a costume either.


What are you going to do?

---

Spoiler: Quick Voting Rules

Vote for one option per underlined section unless otherwise stated. Feel free to customize your votes with up to 60 words of additional description if the option is listed; if you are using someone else’s plan and wish to add something to it, please bold the new portions.

What do you do about the ABB gangsters?

Note: If your vote makes no mention of how you plan to hide your identity, it won't be well-hidden.

[] Run. Just run away. You think there is a back door?

- -[] Customization

[] You can take 'em. How hard could it be?

- -[] Customization

[] Blake can take them down while you...oversee. Or assist. Or something.

- -[] Customization

[] Blake can take them down, or at least distract them, while you run.

- -[] Customization

[] Write-in

- -[] Customization



How much of your powers will you show to the public?

[] All of them. Not the little details, but that your power is to make empowered people, places, and things.

Note: Blake will not be considered a person under this path, and will not be able to hero independently.

- -[] Customization

[] Some combination of the two, but keep one kind of creation to yourself.

Note: Any plan that admits to making “minions,” even one that hides that Blake is one of them, makes his perceived autonomy and humanity far more tenuous.

- -[] Customization REQUIRED—which two?

[] Make stuff? Who makes stuff? You’re just a Shaker who alters the world around yourself.

- -[] Customization

[] You’re a Trump who can give yourself powers, but there are a bunch of limitations that you’re not going into.

- -[] Customization

[] Write-in

- -[] Customization



Blake wanted to be a hero. Now he has that chance. What do you do?

[] Aid him.

[] Stay silent on the subject.

[] Attempt to discourage him from this path.

- -[] Why? (REQUIRED)

---

Spoiler: Basic Info

Basic Info

· Status

o A mild ache, on the back on your head.

o Very worried

o Little mirrors unassigned: 17​

· Big Three

o Central Pool ( (?-1)/? )

§ FAMILIAR

· Blake (Vestige)

o Normal
·​

§ demesne

· Locker (???)
o ???
·​

§ implement

· Pen (Shamanism)
o Normal
·​

Spoiler: Mastered Runes

·

Spoiler: Known Runes

· Alarm (hamper: Stationary)

· Alarm (notice: Living Being Detection)

· Durability (inanimate/inorganic)

· Imbuement (Wind: a little lighter, pushes a little harder)

· Orient: Heart (trigger: finger)

· Protection

· Push (trigger: gesture) [27/30 to Mastered]

· Quiet

· Unlock

Spoiler: Runes Blake can figure out and teach you more easily

· Alarm (punish: Y)

· Banishment (incorporeal/projection)

· Defense (inanimate/inorganic, effect: temporary acid-touch)

· Electricity/Lightning

· Exile (prevents spirit tampering, mutes effects)

· Extinguish

· Fire

· Metal (pseudo-transmutation)

· Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)

· Reaching out (sensory, detection, no significant locomotion)

o Fire (senses warmth, explodes)

o Air (senses breath, moves faster)

o Earth (tracks footsteps, hits harder)

o Metal (transmits signals, moves slowly)

o Water (senses magic/powers, insta-charges)​

· Secures locks

· Smell-be-gone

· Ward (Elemental) (Autolearns upon next rune-learning action)

· Escher connection

Spoiler: Theorized Runes

· Copy (document)

Spoiler: Runes you could learn

· Anything you can See.

---

A/N: Training wheels off! Who was surprised?


Bleh. It took me a bit to get it right, so that [REDACTED]. I also had to look more stuff up. My main info sheet is getting pretty ridiculously large.


Also, your dice were mostly normal. I use 2d10s for that reason, rather than a d20, as least for the standard rolls. There were a couple of rolls that were below average, and a couple more above, iirc. It affected mostly how much you learned and how much power learning that took. The rolls will be more significant in more…volatile situations.


Oh, look at the end of the chapter, it’s a volatile situation!


If exposition seems like it heads nowhere, that’s just because we’re not there yet…